1. John Hurt - The Elephant Man
John Hurt's performance as John Merrick in this movie is basically why we have a Best Makeup category at the Oscars. Seriously. You see, back in 1980, there was sadly no way for the Academy to formally recognize amazing makeup work. They realized their mistake after The Elephant Man came out, and shortly thereafter created a special category for it. Boom. And who said makeup couldn't change history? John Hurt was an absolute star throughout the entire filming of this movie. He spent up to ten hours in makeup every day that he was on set, and he not only acted through all the makeup and prosthetics, he acted the
hell out of it. While John Hurt didn't win an Oscar for this film, for me it's one of the strongest performances I've ever seen, and the fact that he was able to emote so strongly through such heavy makeup is nothing short of amazing.